Well the book certainly has a lot of merit. The big 'what if?' has been perfectly realised, with what we now see as only one thin remove from the truth.īut does this now-old book deserve a 2009 re-release? Does it deserve to be called a Penguin Classic – and one disguised as a general fiction book, and not at all looking like sci-fi? And does it deserve a RRP which I at first thought was a typo? (Things are never as bad as in the film loosely based on this book, Soylent Green.) It all smacks of a dystopic vision, but on the whole is classically correct sci-fi. The world's fuel supply has been used up, and the best the average man can rely on for food is some tasteless fabrication based on seaweed. It is a world of massive over-population the western world has used up all its resources, the farmlands are a dustbowl, everything else green has been built upon, and among the sprawling rickshaw-riddled slums packed to capacity in the megalopolis of New York, poverty, rationing, water shortages, and street crime are all rife. Written in 1966, the 1999 of this fictional world is very nicely realised. But the biggest character in this book remains the setting. Andy, the policeman from the incredibly under-resourced police force, while surprised at the amount he is ordered to concentrate on this murder for, falls in love with Shirl.
Summary: A reprint of the 1960s sci-fi book, which shows just how brilliant and prescient the creation of its dystopia was, but also how disappointing the second half of the story the book sets in it.Ī young man practically living on the streets finds a change of fortune with a job as a messenger boy, but will it lead to quite the right kind of luck? A political Mister Big Nasty gets killed, leaving behind a lovely and glamorous moll-type character, Shirl.
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